What Would It Look Like?

global oneness project [♪contemplative music playing♪] a global oneness project film What Would It Look Like? I would love to think that this planet is undergoing a spiritual evolution-- Ven. Tenzin Palmo - Buddhist Nun --but I don't see any signs of it. [♪contemplative music playing♪] We're still trying to colonize one another's minds. Cliff Curtis - Actor We're still trying to tell people what to think. [♪contemplative music playing♪] How many people live in a world-- Orland Bishop - Community Activist --where their world no longer matters because they don't have money? [♪contemplative music playing♪] Is America willing to do what it has to do-- Angel Kyodo Williams - Dharma Teacher, Author and Social Activist --to actually cultivate more equitable sharing of resources in the world? [♪contemplative music playing♪] Don Alverto Taxo - Master Iachak of the Atis People In the West, in the industrialized world-- --they think that Mother Nature exists to be exploited. [tree falling] [♪contemplative music playing♪] [♪contemplative music continues♪] We may end up destroying all of our resources-- Medha Patkar - Social Activist --and also the living communities. [♪contemplative music playing♪] Well, we're faced with a challenge. Dean Radin - Senior Scientist at the Institute of Noetic Sciences Can we, as a global tribe, get our act together fast enough to be able to change our collective behavior fast enough? [♪contemplative music playing♪] Even when Buddha and Jesus and Muhammad came, they couldn't change people's minds. [♪contemplative music playing♪] It is a big challenge-- Sami Awad - Gandhian and Director of The Holy Land Trust --because it is very protective to remain in the narrative. It is very safe not to challenge that cover around you. [♪contemplative music playing♪] I think we just have to not fix it. We just have to sit with it. We have to sit with the truth of it. We have to let go of the story of America as savior. [♪contemplative music playing♪] How do I have to be in order for you to be free? [♪contemplative music playing♪] The challenge is when we talk about standing on a groundless ground of nothing in that future-- --and knowing that the future is void and empty. The challenge becomes what can we do that honors and respects every single individual that lives on this land-- --and their history, and their identity, and their own narratives-- --and at the same time, with this respect of their narratives and their identity-- --create a future that they will look at and they would say-- --"I don't just easily fit into this. I want to be part of this." "And my own personal identity and my own belief system will be even enhanced to a greater extent-- --by me buying into this new story and this new narrative." [♪mellow guitar music♪] Human beings have within them the capacity both to make peace and to make war-- Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge - Former South African Deputy Minister of Health --and what is really ideal is for us to look for that and find in each one of us that which makes us human-- --that makes us want to live and want to enjoy freedoms-- --and if we work with that, it actually is possible to find a solution to the conflicts. A lot of the time the conflicts that rage and continue in the world-- --whether it's conflicts around resources, conflicts between men and women-- --conflicts among religions, those conflicts are fueled by the negative in us-- --which is encouraged where we demonize one another-- --where we do not see ourselves being able to share and have a common understanding. [♪mellow guitar music playing♪] [♪somber music playing♪] Anything which means that they have to give up their comforts they're not willing to do, the majority of the people. There are always going to be people on the outsides who are willing to do something-- --but the real people who really matter, they're not interested. And you look even in Asia now, more and more people--the middle class is coming up-- --but it just means that they're buying more, consuming more, and using up more and more of the earth's resources. And they're not going to be told, "No, no. You should be content with little-- --and stop using your cars and stop using your refrigerators," and so forth. Who is going to listen to that? They're going to say, "Well, let America do it first." "They're the ones to tell us. What about them?" "We want all these things that you've always had. Don't you tell us to give it up." [♪somber music playing♪] And now we're talking about billions of people thinking like that in Asia, in China, in India. Everybody is dreaming of having a car and a television and a refrigerator and on and on and on and on. They're not thinking about going back to what they had before, which was very little and contentment. I mean, the media--everywhere, advertisements, advertisements, advertisements-- --movies showing people--even ordinary so-called people--living like gods. And then everybody thinks, 'That's what I want.' [♪contemplative music playing♪] It's not so easy, is it? [♪contemplative music playing♪] I mean, politicians can talk but at the end of the day, the population is rising and rising and rising-- --and to my mind, this is the greatest threat to the world. So many people. How is the world going to support so many people? [♪contemplative music playing♪] So maybe the answer for them is, "All right. We blow up half the world and then we've got room for the rest of us." [♪contemplative music playing♪] We have systems and structures that condone aggression and violence as long as it's sanctioned by the state and by the government. We have systems and structures that create and engender further and further-- --and deeper and deeper separation and give it some kind of a platform for being reasonable-- --rather than engendering and supporting deeper and deeper mutuality and oneness. And so until those systems and structures are also undermined and pulled apart-- --then we will only see change, like small shifts of change, but not transformation. Until the systems and structures themselves are no longer able to support those social sensibilities that are damaging to humanity-- --we will not be transformed as a society. And those systems and structures were created and are kept in place by individuals-- --so it's a cycle, a circle that kind of loops back on itself. [♪somber music playing♪] We have a right to produce. Everyone should be given the right to produce. We should not be consistently limited by an economic system-- --that has made slavery worse in the 21st century than it was in the 17th century. [♪somber music playing♪] Because people expect to participate and can't. People expect to experience a world of oneness and can't. [♪somber music playing♪] Because every system tells them they're free-- [♪somber music playing♪] [child laughing] --when it is not true. [♪somber flute music playing♪] The search for justice is one of those fundamental values that I think should guide all of us-- --because if you believe that you want fairness, you want equality, you want freedom-- --you want to live a life that is safe, that is not subjected to violence-- --it is that belief which I think will drive you to want to go and be involved in making sure-- --that the other person also enjoys that same feeling of justice, feeling of freedom. [♪somber flute music playing♪] To build a future that, again, respects that identity, respects me as being a Palestinian-- --respects me as being an Arab, respects a person who is being a Jew, respects a person who is being a Buddhist-- --but create a future that has a sense of independency from that ethnic past. And that's where the challenge becomes in creating this new global identity. It is an identity that encompasses everyone and has no value in it of being against anything else or anyone else. [♪flute music continues♪] A certain type of development is happening on the planet-- --in nature as well as in human beings that we cannot exploit it anymore. We reach a point in which it has to be mutual consent if we are going to get the participation of nature and other human beings into world systems. We can't force people to do anything anymore. We've reached a point where that type of exploitation of the human capacities are over. People wouldn't tolerate it. This is part of the world of terrorism. This is what is has produced, so people are saying, "We will not allow ourselves to be exploited." Now, there's a certain edge what fundamentalism is producing. Now, when we do not want to share a world, the only thing left is fundamentalism. [♪mellow guitar music playing♪] It's not about uniformity-- --it's not about making the world of one type of culture. This would mean doing away with many cultures-- --many forms and manifestations of a relationship with nature. Instead, what different cultures are looking for-- --is a way to maintain their diversity-- --while contributing to and helping each other-- --including our peculiarities and diversity-- --to create a society that respects diversity-- --so that we can live in a world of great cultural richness-- --with different forms of relationship with nature-- --with the great spirit of life. It is this richness that we don't want to lose. It's dangerous to search for unity when diversity ends. [♪mellow guitar music playing♪] I think the power of what we are talking about is the ability and the desire to create transformation. And transformation has to take place from one setting into another setting. And that setting is that core identity that people are born in, and this is the reality. I was born as a Palestinian, I have an identity card that says I'm a Palestinian. Even if I personally claim to be a human being, part of the human family-- --the first checkpoint or airport or border crossing immediately throws me back into this one identity-- --which the world now has placed upon me and recognized me. The challenge is to be able to distinguish your identity and what makes your identity-- --from the interpretations that have caused you to create animosity and conflict and tension with other identities as well. I think the world will be a very boring, dull world if we all are just one identity-- --claiming to be one people living in this world. I think there is creativity, there is art, there is culture, there is talents, there is philosophy that is presented. By combining all of these different identities, recognizing them, respecting them-- --engaging in a discussion of equality amongst identities-- --not that there is one ethnic identity better than the other, one religion better than the other-- --one society better than the other, that we are all equal. And equality at the premise, as I said, is what will create an opportunity for this new global identity to be developed. [Martin Luther King Jr. speaking] I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama-- --with its vicious racists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of interposition and nullification-- --one day right there in Alabama, little black boys and little black girls-- --will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers. I have a dream today. [♪somber music playing♪] As we speak, cars in Boston and factories in Beijing are melting the ice caps in the Arctic-- --shrinking coastlines in the Atlantic, and bringing drought to farms from Kansas to Kenya. The poppies in Afghanistan come to Berlin in the form of ***. The poverty and violence in Somalia breeds the terror of tomorrow. The genocide in Darfur shames the conscience of us all. In this new world such dangerous currents have swept along faster than our efforts to contain them-- --and that is why we cannot afford to be divided. [♪somber music playing♪] This is our moment. This is our time to open doors of opportunity for our kids, to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace-- --to dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth that out of many we are one-- --that while we breathe we hope and where we are met with cynicism and doubt and those who tell us that we can't-- --we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes we can. Thank you. God bless you. [crowd cheering] [♪upbeat music playing♪] I don't know what the answer is. If I knew, I would be a multimillionaire selling it--you know? >>Would you? Well, you could build lots of nunneries and monasteries with millions. I mean, if one knew the answer, wouldn't that be wonderful? There are many people who talk about it, many people who dream of it-- --millions of people who want to see it happen. It's a dream for many people. Right now we view it as something utopian. But many things that now form part of our everyday life-- --seemed utopian before. Now they are everyday things. [♪upbeat music playing♪] We can split the atom. We did. We can go to the moon. We did. This is the imagination. We can even do more with the power of love. [♪upbeat music playing♪] Let's stop a moment and look at our lives from a broader perspective. Then we will realize that there are more important things in life-- --than spending the whole weekend in the supermarket-- --trying to buy everything we can-- --so that we can experience momentary satisfaction. [♪upbeat music playing♪] Within your own experience there is a bigger experience-- --where it is possible for you to get beyond your immediate experience-- --and seek out that that is human that unites us as human beings. [♪upbeat music playing♪] What if this reality can change? What would it look like? [♪upbeat music playing♪] If it's possible for a bunch of little white people from England-- --to become the greatest imperial nation of the world for a millisecond of human history-- --that's an amazing feat that they pulled off-- --it's just as possible that humanity can sort of think-- --'Hey, why don't we walk left instead of right?' [♪upbeat music playing♪] produced and directed by Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee edited by Adam Loften music by H. Scott Salinas "Finding Hope" written and performed by H. Scott Salinas (ASCAP), Adam Schiff (ASCAP) produced by H. Scott Salinas interviews filmed by Denise Zabalaga, Tom Tanquary Sound Recording by Tom Tanquary, Denise Zabalaga, Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee, Reza Williams Sound Design Re-recording, Mixing by D. Chris Smith graphics by Adam Loften, Elias Koch, Shawn Collins production assistance Elias Koch visual acquisitions producer Rivkah Beth Medow special thanks to Gayatrikoshan Banksy Interviewees Sami Awad, Nozizwe Madlala, Orland Bishop, Angel Kyodo Williams, Tenzin Palmo Interviewees Don Alverto Taxo, Cliff Curtis, Dean Radin, Medha Patkar additional footage by Blacklight Films, Louie Schwartzburg, BBC Motion Gallery, Prelinger Archive, Getty Images, iStock Photo, FramePool, Corbis global oneness project - www.globalonenessproject.org